An Eye for an Eye
by Sakiku
Summary: A somewhat more literal interpretation of the saying. Not revenge, but with the same result. Grief and dead people. One-shot.


**Disclaimer:** Don't own Naruto, don't make any money with this.

**Rating:** PG-13. Gore and squickiness.

**Summary:** A somewhat more literal interpretation of the saying. Not revenge, but the end result is the same. Grief and dead people.

**A/N**: I don't think this is completely compliant with Kakashi Gaiden. I've never seen it, and the only thing I know is how Kakashi got the Sharingan – I don't know how he lost it in the first place. So forgive me if I made that up. I think it fits anyway.

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An Eye for an Eye**

Kakashi bit his lip until it bled. The agony in his no-longer-empty eye socket, which Rin was working on, was nearly unbearable but he held still. She needed all her concentration for the operation. She had neither time nor strength nor resources to also deaden his nerves, like a team of medic nin would have been capable of.

His one functioning eye looked up at her, watching how tears rolled down her cheeks without her ever noticing. Her glowing green hands took up her whole concentration. Occasionally she blinked the liquid away, but most of the time, she saw with her chakra instead of her eyes.

He was almost grateful that he was lying next to Obito, not being forced to look directly at his dead teammate although he could see his still form from the corner of his good eye.

"I will connect all the nerves now. This will hurt."

Oh, and it hadn't hurt before? When she had removed the ruined remains of his former eye? When she had placed the dripping, gooey mess that just couldn't be an eye into his socket and begun to weld it into place? When she had torn and scorched at his chakra channels to force them to connect to and recognize Obito's as his own?

Nonetheless, Kakashi was thankful for her warning. With it, he had enough time to clench both teeth and fists until his knuckles were white. He exhaled so that when the first agony hit he didn't have enough air in his lungs to scream. They couldn't afford to draw enemy attention.

Yes, when Rin saw it fit to warn him, such measures had to be taken.

They had gone through it often enough by now for her to know what those few deep breaths and then the long exhale meant. She started as soon as all air had left his lungs. Kakashi's strangled gargle mercifully was quiet and brief; he was more concerned with not writhing on the ground or slapping her hands away to stop the agony. He panted in short, empty breaths to not give in to the temptation of screaming at full lungs. Colorful stars burst in his vision, slowly melting into a reddish haze across everything.

Finally she took her hands away, looking at him critically. "I'm done. It should work now."

He stared at her, not comprehending for a moment. He was too busy trying to raise the oxygen levels in his blood now that the agony was slowly tempering off. The red haze in front of his eyes stayed though. It was especially bright around her.

"Kakashi?" She sounded concerned.

"Yes?" he rasped, jaws aching and refusing to work properly.

She repeated herself. "Your eye. Does it work?"

With fingers that were almost numb from being clenched so hard, he covered his good eye. Only the red haze remained, but somehow it outlined the exact shape of the cave, the exact shape of Rin who was studying him intently. Somehow, the red haze managed to tell him that her hair was light brown, that she was deathly pale, that red blood was randomly splattered across her uniform.

Somehow, he could see everything he could with his normal eye including color, but he had a feeling that there was more. He thought it lay in the glow that surrounded Rin, especially her hands.

"How many fingers am I holding up?"

Her hands glowed so strongly that it was hard to make out individual digits. Involuntarily, Kakashi squinted, sending a wave of pain through his newly attached muscles and nerves. But the eye obediently focused on three fingers.

"Three."

"And now?"

Another wave of pain as he continued having to squint against her brightness. "Seven."

"Good," she nodded satisfied. "I can work on the fine-tuning when we're out of here. But we need to leave as soon as possible. They can't have given up the hunt for us."

He held still long enough for her to place another bandage over his new eye to protect its rawness from the world. The red haze vanished.

He knew as well as her that doing the operation right there had been a great risk. But it had been their only chance. When Obito had pushed him away… Only with a great deal of preparation, organs could be removed from a body and then transplanted at a later point of time. And it had happened all so fast.

Rin had said that if they wanted to honor Obito's last wish, they'd have to act right _now_. She hadn't said anything about the pain, and he was glad that she knew him well enough to know that pain was not a factor in his decision.

He had looked at her, not asking whether she could do it or not. He had trusted her to have the medical knowledge; otherwise she wouldn't have suggested it. And he had known that she would tear herself apart for her two teammates. Both mentally and physically.

Right next to them, Obito's harsh and wet breathing that had been getting weaker by the second had finally stopped. Obito had quickly fallen unconscious, but the rest of his body had still clung to life desperately despite being far beyond repair.

Kakashi had immediately looked to Obito's now utterly still frame, and almost without his consent, his hands had risen to remove the bandages over the gaping wound that had once been his left eye.

When his good eye had met Rin's, they hadn't needed any words. Her hands had shaken when she had motioned for him to lay right next to Obito, kneeling at their heads. He hadn't told her to hurry, and she hadn't said anything about the delicateness of the procedure. If the enemy discovered them before they were done, so be it.

And they had been lucky.

Kakashi didn't know how long it had taken – pain had a funny way of stretching and contracting time beyond any measure – but so far, no Rock-nin had stumbled upon the hole in the ceiling of the cave the rock-slide had locked them into. He knew that wouldn't last forever. Iwa shinobi were uncannily skilled in detecting chakra signatures under ground.

Now that Rin and he had paid their morbid respect to the dead, it was time to care for the living and see to it that he didn't lose another teammate on this hellish mission. He couldn't afford to prolong the time they spent there any further. His arms shook pitifully when he used them to lever his upper body into a vertical position. All his limbs felt like overcooked ramen noodles, weak and limp. Pain and dropping from the resulting adrenaline high could do that.

Nonetheless, he forced himself to get up completely, using his chakra to bolster his failing body. He could see that she had some trouble standing herself, but her problem was caused by a lack of chakra. She'd had to use most of her already low reserves for the surgery.

He carefully turned his throbbing head towards Obito. "We can't take him home."

Obito was still half-buried beneath rubble, and he was heavy. Kakashi doubted either one of them had the strength to free him of the stones, let alone carry him all the way back to Konoha.

She stood next to him, not saying anything. Even when he laboriously began to form seals through the stiff trembling in his hands, she didn't say anything. He took a deep breath and exhaled as steadily as possible. The white-hot flame had no trouble eating through flesh and bone, even melting part of the rock. A charred smell of burned flesh briefly wafted away from the corpse. Then it was reduced to ashes.

He couldn't have let one of the most sought-after Konoha bloodlines fall into enemy hands.

Without a second glance he began to climb the rock and dirt hill towards the opening in the ceiling. Rin was not far behind him.

It had been Obito's fault that Kakashi had lost his eye. If Obito hadn't stumbled into him at the wrong time earlier in the mission, Kakashi would have been able to dodge the shuriken completely. As it was, it had sliced from his cheekbone to his forehead, tearing an irreparable gash into his eyeball in the process. He had been angry, so incredibly angry, but Obito's scared and guilty face when seeing the wound that refused to stop weeping blood, had called forth some human tact within him. Kakashi hadn't said anything. Especially when Obito had crumpled after Rin said he'd never see out of that eye again.

But then, not even 72 hours later, their situation had reversed. This time, it had been Kakashi's fault that Obito had become trapped beneath an avalanche of stone. And instead of being angry at Kakashi, Obito had smiled and presented him with his own eye in exchange.

An eye for an eye.

Kakashi continued climbing, trying to ignore the sniffling behind him and the way his vision blurred in and out of focus.

Somehow he'd rather have Obito than his eye.

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A/N:**

Hate it? Like it? All comments welcome!

Sakiku


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